Women who develop diabetes during pregnancy are liable to have large babies, which in turn can lead to obesity in childhood -- but that chain of events may be interrupted if the mother breast-feeds, researchers report.

Diabetes that develops during pregnancy is termed gestational diabetes mellitus or GDM. “In a recent study of infants of mothers who had GDM, we demonstrated that parental obesity and excessive intrauterine growth resulting in neonatal overweight independently contribute to early childhood obesity,” Dr. Ute M. Schaefer-Graf and colleagues explain in the medical journal Diabetes Care.